Oral Answers to Questions

Harpreet Uppal Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips]

As I said in answer to the previous question, the Department for Work and Pensions is absolutely fundamental and a core part of the interministerial group that works on the violence against women and girls strategy because of the financial tools—not just through mortgages and other assets—that people have and use in cases of domestic abuse and coercive control. It is absolutely vital that we ensure that our benefit system and the state systems that relate to children are not used as a tool for abusers.

[Harpreet Uppal (Huddersfield) (Lab)]

11. What recent steps her Department has taken to help tackle knife crime.

[The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)]

We have set an ambitious but essential target to halve knife crime in a decade, and we are already seeing results. Since the start of this Parliament, knife crime has fallen by 8% and knife homicides are down 27% to their lowest level in a decade, but we must and will go further. We are working on the final plans for our cross-Government plan to halve knife crime, which we will publish soon.

[Harpreet Uppal]

Child criminal exploitation is a significant driver of knife crime in the UK. Around 15,500 children were identified as at risk or involved in exploitation in the year ending March 2025. Children are often coerced by gangs into carrying weapons for protection, storing drugs and trafficking illegal goods, often being criminalised themselves rather than treated as victims. What work is the Home Office doing to target the organised criminality behind CCE, and what structures are in place to support children and families in vulnerable situations?

[Sarah Jones]

We are introducing legislation to bring in a new offence of child criminal exploitation. Our county lines programme works extensively not just to tackle the criminals and to shut down the lines, but to safeguard young people. More than 4,000 safeguarding referrals have been made since July 2024, so while we are catching the criminals, we are also protecting the children.